Philippa Gregory - The other queen

I shall write to Cecil. He understands what houses and land and fortune mean to a woman who was raised with nothing. He might listen kindly to a wife appealing for the safety of her beloved husband. He might listen with generosity to a newly married woman in distress. But if I beg him to save my fortune, he will understand that this is something more important than sentiment: this is business.

Bothwell,

I have your letter. I know you would have come if you could. I did look for you at the time, but it is all over for me now. I see that it is over for you. We have been great gamblers and we have lost. I shall pray for you.

Marie

It is so bitterly cold, it is so drear, it is so miserable here that I can hardly bear to get out of my bed in the morning. The old ache in my side has returned and some days I cannot eat nor even lie in my bed without crying for pain. It has been raining, sleety freezing rain, for days and all I can see from my poky windows are gray skies, and all I can hear is the ceaseless drip, drip, drip from the roof to the mud below.

This castle is so damp that not even the biggest fire in the hearth can dry the patterns of damp from the plaster on the walls, and my furniture is starting to grow green with a cold wet mold. I think that Elizabeth chose this place for me hoping that I will die here. Some days I wish that I could.

The only event which has gone my way at all is the safe return of the Earl of Shrewsbury from Windsor Castle. I expected him to face death too, but Elizabeth has chosen to trust him a little longer. Better than that, she has even decided to leave me in his care. Nobody knows why this should be, but she is a tyrant, she can be whimsical. I suppose that once she had ordered her killings, her excessive fears were sated. She overreacts, as she always does, and from sending me two extra jailers, banishing my household servants and companions, threatening me with house arrest and the arrest of my host, now she restores me to the keeping of Shrewsbury and sends me a kind letter inquiring after my health.

Shrewsbury delivers it, but he is so pale and drawn that I might have thought the letter was his order of execution. He hardly looks at me and I am glad of that, for I am huddled in rugs in my chair at the fireside, twisted around to try to spare the pain in my side, and I have never looked worse.

“I am to stay with you?” He must hear the relief in my voice, for his tired face warms in response.

“Yes. It seems I am forgiven for letting you meet the Northern lords, God save their souls. But I am on parole as your guardian. I am warned not to make mistakes again.”

“I am truly sorry to have brought such trouble to your door.”

He shakes his head. “Oh, Your Grace, I know that you never meant to bring trouble to me. And I know you would not plot against an ordained queen. You might seek your freedom but you would not threaten her.”

I lower my eyes. When I look up again he is smiling down on me. “I wish you could be my advisor as well as my guardian,” I say very quietly. “I would have done better in my life if I could always have been kept by a man such as you.”

There is a silence for a moment. I hear the log shift in the grate and a little flame makes the shadowy room brighter.

“I wish it too,” he says, very low. “I wish I could see you come to your own again, in safety and health.”

“Will you help me?” My voice is barely louder than the flicker of the fire.

“If I can,” he says. “If I can without dishonor.”

“And not tell Bess,” I add. “She is too good a friend of Cecil for my safety.” I think he will hesitate at this: I am asking him to ally with me against his wife. But he rushes forward.

“Bess is his spy,” he says, and I can hear the bitterness in his voice. “Her friendship with him may have saved my life, but I cannot thank her for it. She is his friend and his ally, his informant. It was her reporting to him that saved me. It is his authority that sanctions everything. Bess is always friends with the most powerful. Now her choice lights on Cecil, whereas it used to be me.”

“You don’t think that they…” I mean to hint at a love affair. But Shrewsbury shakes his head before I need say more.

“It is not infidelity; it is worse than that,” he says sadly. “It is disloyalty. She sees the world as he sees it: as a battle between the English and everyone else, as a battle between the Protestants and the Papists. The reward for the English Protestants is power and wealth; that is all they care for. They think that God so loves them that He gives them the riches of the world. They think that their wealth is evidence that they are doing the right thing, beloved by God.” He breaks off and looks at me. “My confessor would have called them pagans,” he says bluntly. “My mother would have called them heretics.”

“You are of the true faith?” I whisper incredulously.

“No, not now, but like every Protestant in England today, I was raised in the old church, I was baptized as a Papist, I was brought up to say Mass, I acknowledged the authority of the Holy Father. And I cannot forget the teachings of my childhood. My mother lived and died in the old faith. I cannot think another way for the convenience of the queen. I cannot believe, as Bess does, as Cecil does, that we have a private insight into the mind of God. That we don’t need priests or the Pope. That we know everything, all by ourselves, and that the proof of this is the blessing of our own greed.”

“If I am ever Queen of England I will let men worship as they wish,” I promise.

He nods. “I know you will. I know you would be a most…a most gracious queen.”

“You would be my dearest friend and counselor,” I say with a little smile. “You would be my advisor. You would be my secretary of state and head of my Privy Council.” I name the titles that Cecil has usurped. I know how deeply Shrewsbury wants them.

“Get well quickly then,” he says, and I can hear the tenderness in his voice. “You must be well and strong before you can hope for anything. Rest and get well, my…Your Grace.”

News from London which changes everything. What a world we live in now! Everything is turned about again, without warning, almost without reason. My letter comes from Cecil, so there is every reason for me to mistrust it. But this is news that not even he could conceal or invent. It must be the case. The Scots queen’s luck has come good once more, and her star has shot into the ascendant. She is a queen whose fortune ebbs and flows like the tides, and suddenly she is in full flood. Her half brother, the usurper of her throne, her greatest enemy, Lord Moray, has been assassinated in Scotland and her country is once again without a leader. This leaves a gaping hole at the very head of the Scots government. They have no one who can take the throne. They must take her back. There is no other. Amazingly, just when she was thrust down lower than she has ever been in her life, her luck has turned again and she will be queen. They have to take her back. Indeed, they want her back as queen.

Instead of hurrying to Bess with the letter, as I would have done only months ago, I go straight across the courtyard to find the queen. She is better, thank God. I find her dressed in her beautiful black velvet, turning out the contents of some trunks, which have moved from house to house with her and never been unpacked. She is holding a red brocade against her face to look at herself in a looking glass, and laughing. I don’t think I have ever seen her more beautiful.

“My lord, will you look at this gown!” she starts, but then she sees my face and the letter in my hand, and she thrusts the gown at her friend Mary Seton and comes quickly towards me.

“George?”

“I am sorry to have to tell you that your half brother, Lord Moray, is dead,” I say.

“Dead?”

“Assassinated.”

I cannot mistake the joy that lights up her face. I know at once that she has been hoping for this, and I know also my familiar dread of dealing with people who love secrets. Perhaps it was her dark plan and her wicked assassin who struck the blow.

“And my son? My James? Do you have news of my son?”

This is a mother’s response. This is a true woman. I should not be so suspicious. “He is safe,” I assure her. “He is safe.”

“You are certain? He is safe for sure?”

“They say so.”

“How did you hear?”

“From Cecil. It must be true. He writes to tell me that shortly the queen will be writing to you. She will have some proposals to put before you that she hopes will resolve all. So he says.”

“Ah!” she breathes, taking my hands in her own and stepping close to me. She has grasped in an instant what this means. There is no woman in the world quicker than her. “Chowsbewwy,” she says, “this is the start of my new beginning. With Moray dead, the Scots will have to let me back to my throne. There is no one else who can take power. There is no other heir. Elizabeth will have to support me—now she has no choice; there is no one else. It is me, or no one. She will have to support me. I shall go back to Scotland and I shall be queen again.” She chokes on a little laugh. “After all!” she exults. “After all we have been through. They will have me back.”